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French Exchange Students

Written by Daniel Radka and Alyssa LeMay |
Photographs by Alyssa LeMay|

This week, nine students from Lycee L’Olivier in Marseille, France stayed with Morgan students. After spending twelve hours traveling from Marseille to New York City, the French students happily assimilated into the Morgan community. They were asked a few days into their trip to describe their experience.

The French students brought a lot of spirit and joy to Morgan. Sandra, the student paired with Katie Kozak, suggested that we should not get up from lunch because 26 minutes is a ridiculously short amount of time to eat. In France, they get at least one or two hours and students often go home for lunch. The French kids all thought that Morgan was very big compared to their school. They also pointed out that they had more breaks between classes and that they had longer classes. They also go to school on Saturday mornings to take exams. Sami, Dan Radka’s student, was very surprised of how often Morgan kids leave class to use the bathroom or fill up their water bottles.

The French exchange students were asked a few questions regarding their trip and also our school in general. When asked how their trip was, many of the students said it was very long. It was a 16 hour trip for them, they took two planes and they had a long bus ride from JFK Airport in New York to our school.

When asked what was different from our school to theirs, the size of our school was a popular answer. Their school does not have a gym or any sports fields so they were all astounded when they walked into these large areas. The French students were also surprised to see how many students drove themselves to school. The driving age in France is 18 so many of the students are not familiar with driving.

The French students are their hosts took a trip to Boston and Yale in New Haven for sight seeing. The French students were surprised to see that many squirrels around the people since they don’t have many where they live.